Carl MacDougall 1941—2023

Carl MacDougall was moving house at the end of 2018. I offered him a bookcase from a house clearance, which he accepted. There’s probably a metaphor still lying about in the rain somewhere. He was my tormentor, appointed by Scottish Book Trust. An author of fiction and non-fiction, whose work Scots The Language of the People, was also a four-part BBC television series in 2006 which he presented. He wrote the introduction and edited, The Scottish Short Story, The Devil and the Giro, which will probably never by bettered for its breath and depth.

He lectured, wrote for theatre, and was President of Scottish Pen. We met four times near Glasgow’s Central Station which was convenient for both of us. Those were the good old days. I normally only passed two beggars on the way to meeting him for tea and a bun. I kept a pound handy for each hooded figure sprawled on the pavement or unpoliced doorways. I blamed Thatcherism. Carl’s dad had been a waiter, so he knew what it felt to be relying on handouts and palmed off with bits of chocolate gateau and frozen promises. I did too. I’d almost been arrested for aggressive begging in Clydebank Shopping Centre by a policeman who was drunker than me, but let me off with a mumbled warning since I was collecting for Amnesty International. 

The first few pages of my manuscript, Grimms, had been sent to Carl before Christmas, but he wasn’t taking anybody on. Beggars squat outside Waverly station on a blanket meditating. International visitors think they’re a tourist attraction, part of the Fringe. The top pitch spot, but I’d need more than a quid. Asking for directions cost more. Edinburgh has more beggars-per-square mile than any other city apart from London. Scottish Book Trust has its headquarters in the old posh part of the city. We met in a fancy café nearby. A cake was so expensive I only chewed half of it and slipped the rest into my pocket to show my wife. We could both stare at it together.

Carl was a wee guy, twenty year older than me. He dressed in black like Johnnie Cash. With his tousled grey hair, he cocked his head and gave me the thousand-yard stare. I was unfazed. Big families. My elder sister Jo used to stare at me like cross-eyed when she accused me of picking my nose. Someone Always Robs the Poor was Carl’s last short-story collection. He was aware that even your sister could turn out to be a closet Tory. Life was funny that way.

 When Carl was born, The Brain Trust was on the Radio. Radios were sturdy creatures with four carved legs, Bakelite buttons and panels. They could be rented from Radio Rentals in the same way our family rented our first television, with a slot for coins. Transistors hadn’t yet been invented. Kids left school at fourteen, but many had been working legally since they were ten, illegally before that. Teenagers didn’t exist. The Kitchen Front was for women at work and at home. Vera Lynn, Sincerely Yours, was for men and women. Those dating would go to the cinema and have a slap up feed of mushy peas and vinegar. On the same year as BBC News announced the Clydebank Blitz, three people were killed in a Tramcar Crash after crossing Nitshill Road, near Darnley Fire Station. Hitler’s Deputy, Rudolph Hess,in parachute harness, tangled in a tree, was found by a ploughman outside Glasgow. He told him he couldn’t park his Messerschmitt 110 plane there, even if he did have a personal message for Winston Churchill.

Carl had a gripe with working with retired English teachers that were set on writing the great Scottish novel. He asked a few questions that established I wasn’t Rudolph Hess, hadn’t as far as I’d known taught English, or been admitted to any great establishment. He wanted me to tell him ways in which I thought he could help me in the same way National Service hadn’t helped him. All writers are liars and can talk about their work as if it actually exists. I waffled on hiding the not-so-great secret, which was your Carl MacDougall. You can help me get published. Full stop. But perhaps not a full stop with uppercase capitals?

He demurred, but Carl was good at that too. He said my work showed a great sense of place. He tapped at the page at the bits he liked, which weren’t many. Chaz and his henchmen and the fake Crombie. Perhaps Carl got buried in his black version of that jacket from the seventies. I’ve got a coat very like that in my wardrobe. I often lost the plot. Not having one helped. Neither of us favoured happy endings. But I wanted to ask him to write a blurb for Grimms, which I’d renamed Beastie. Spellbound had agreed to publish it. Writing is the easy part. Selling the hard part would have been my selling point to him. A bit like people smuggling, word of mouth goes a long way. I was hoping Carl would help me get my novel into the main stream, the radio, or even the telly on the BBC. Dream big. Dream stupid. He’d written in his short-story collection, Elvis is Dead.  Carl was always ahead of the game. He’s dead too, like Elvis, but not like Elvis.  RIP.